Railroad workers struggling to pay their bills are “afraid” of a real cut in their wages if the Network Rail strike, the largest of the railways in 30 years, fails.
Darren Pilling, 55, was picketed in front of Lime Street station on Thursday, the second day of the three-day strike. The secretary of the Northwest Regional Council of the Union of Rail and Maritime Transport (RMT) said: “You can hear the rumor behind me. It’s a very well attended picket line, morale is very high, probably something to to see with time, and the The support that we have had of the citizenship in general and of the union movement in general is magnificent ”.
Many railroad workers have not had a pay rise since 2019, and negotiations between RMT and Network Rail are at a difficult juncture, with the union opposing a 3% pay rise along with modernization measures, which would include cuts in places of safety work and an increase in the working day. This is higher than the original 1% supply, but below the union demand of 7%, below inflation.
READ MORE: Liverpool sends an important message to railway workers when the strike begins
Darren said, “My salary is the salary of a fair day for a fair work day. There are people out there who earn a lot less than I do, and they tell me they suffer. And I know they suffer. Because it’s not just them. those who tell me My cousins tell me, my brother tells me, my sister tells me, my mother, my grandmother, everyone, all our friends in the community. “Everyone is hurting. There are people out there now who are experiencing real poverty.”
Karl Schofield, 35, is “feeling the tension” of losing three days ’pay as more than 40,000 railway workers go on strike. Although he’s already struggling to pay the bills, get rid of his car because of the cost and take his daughter on a picnic instead of paid activities he enjoys, Karl said “you can’t afford not to to strike “.
A salary increase that doesn’t fit the rising cost of living would be “devastating” for this 35-year-old, who has worked on the railroad for a decade. He told ECHO: “The idea of another real wage reduction scares me. We are not looking for a wage increase, we are just trying to stay in line with inflation, because anything below inflation is a wage reduction. we are pushing more and more towards the line of passage. “
RMT members and supporters join the picket outside Liverpool Lime Street station on Thursday 23 June, the second day of a three-day strike (Image: Paul McGowan)
This week, Merseyrail reached an agreement with general-grade workers who are members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), after an overwhelming majority of union members voted in favor of accepting a 7.1 wage agreement. % with the transport operator. This would give hope to striking RMT members, who were not part of the Merseyrail dispute, if they felt that Network Rail and the railway companies were free to negotiate.
The union accused the Conservative government of limiting wage increases to 3% and pushing for modernization measures. The RMT said it was not opposed to modernization, but warned it could be a way to make the terms and conditions “fundamentally inferior”, according to Daren Ireland, the North West’s regional organizer. RMT.
Network Rail denies the government has urged it to limit wage increases and railway chiefs suggested there is no money for higher bids. Steve Montgomery, chairman of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents railway companies, said: “Taxpayers have provided the equivalent of around £ 600 per household, as the number of covid and passengers is still around 75%. We need to bring Break to Date to attract more people again and not take more of our fair share of the public economy. talks to reach an agreement that is fair to staff and taxpayers, and that ensures a bright and long – term future for our railways. “
Train companies paid close to £ 800 million to shareholders last year, and FirstGroup, the UK’s largest train operator, boasted that profits were “above expectations” this year , as reported by openDemocracy. The independent media platform also reported that CEOs of the country’s six largest train companies received a combined salary of more than £ 5 million in 2020.
Railroad workers are wondering where their share of the pie is, and are not alone in demanding wage increases as they move toward industrial action. Criminal lawyers begin four weeks of strikes next week, British Airways ground and cabin crew voted in favor of a strike last week, stagecoach drivers in Merseyside will be on strike next week and teachers and NHS workers are weighing the option.
Carmel O’Boyle, a Liverpool nurse, previously told ECHO that she “has a good time shedding tears” at the stories of colleagues “desperate to feed their children”. He said “they cannot continue with another wage cut this year” and that the country “will see more nurses in poverty” if given a lower wage increase than inflation.
Two members of the University of Liverpool (UCU) branch showed up at the picket in front of Lime Street station on Thursday 28 June. Bee Hughes, president of the branch and a member of the UCU national executive, said: “Their The fight is never an isolated fight. It’s fighting for everyone. They’re really showing the way for other workers to get angry. agitate and drive change “.
Bee, who spent eight years with the insecurity of eventual contracts until two years ago, sees parallels between the RMT strike and the UCU’s struggle against chance and falling wages. Bee, a professor at LJMU, fears that this “will be done outside the sector for a whole generation.”
They said: “Although many UCU members are relatively well paid, we are currently in disputes and Unison is currently in disputes over pay because we have suffered a great deal. [real terms] The wage decline in the last 10 years, which is exacerbated not only by a gender wage gap, but there is also a race-wide wage gap across the sector, as well as a disability wage gap and an LGBT + wage gap. ” .
UCU member Aggelos Panayiotopoulos, a professor of tourism and events at LJMU, said: “It’s important to expose the government’s hypocrisy. They’ve been talking about essential workers: the concept came up during Covid-19 and it was all about “those people who actually run the country and don’t sit in an office. It’s important to understand that their working conditions matter. Their pay matters. Their lives matter.”
According to the Mirror, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters traveling with him to Rwanda: “We need to make the railways work economically for the benefit of the railway workers themselves and their families. It makes no sense to have a railway system in this. “a country that is so uneconomical that you still have to raise ticket prices and you have to get more and more people off the railways. You can’t go on with practices like walking time, with ticket offices selling very few tickets. modernizing.”
Train strike: what are your labor rights if you can’t go to work because of travel
“No surprise”: Liverpool MPs react to being targeted on the cover of the Daily Mail
Update on BA, easyJet and Ryanair strike amid warning of “exhausting summer of travel chaos”.
“Exhausted” medical students accepting part-time jobs to bridge funding gap